Sunday, 29 March 2015

My Newborn Life Hacks!

When the countdown is on to the impending arrival a newborn, your mind is likely to be over run with all the endless and tedious tasks you need to do on a day to day basis...combined with daunting task of caring for a brand new baby...no easy feat!

This week my poor little brain has been absolutely over run with mental checklists of things to do, on top of the worries of things not to forget to take to the hospital, things I need to remember to pick up for the baby and so on.

So I decided to take the bull by the horns and kick Operation Bringing Home Baby into full swing.

I decided I was going to dedicate 2 full days to getting EVERY little task finished that needed finishing in the hopes that...when we bring this little bundle home...the first days are made that bit easier by everything being done.

So how have we been doing this?!

Here are my tips!

1. LISTS ARE YOUR FRIENDS!

It may be the virgo in me, but I struggle to function without a good list...I have lists for everything....I actually have lists to organise my lists (I'm not exaggerating, either.)

I find it helps to seperate tasks into categories - household jobs that need to be finished, Items that need to be picked up or purchased, Things that need to be constructed, Appointments/Phonecalls to make and so on.

Once I have all of these seperate lists running, I can organise my mind into what tasks need to be completed when.

2. Set aside the time and STICK TO THE PLAN

For example...this week we knew we wanted to declutter the cupboards in the house so that we could organise Tyne's new birthday toys, get everything put away and stored sensibility so we know where everything is...so we planned a day where Tyne's grandparents could look after him, and as soon as he was packed off we swung into action and did not stop all day until the job was done.

It was an exhausting and stressful day, but everything was finished on time and it meant that the next days plans didn't need to be altered to allow for any incomplete jobs to be finished.

3. Set up the baby things

A few days before, I want to feel completely prepared to bring baby into the house...so with that in mind, there is a task list of things that needs to be completed.

The crib needs to be assembled and the bedding fitted, the car seat needs to be fitted and the pram needs to be put together.

These things are currently sitting in their various homes, ready and waiting to be put together when the time is right and I have checked to make sure that everything we need to complete the task is right there to hand so there'll be no searching for bedding or missing alan keys, etc.

4. Run Down The Laundry Baskets!

The first few weeks with a newborn are a bit of a shocker in more ways than one, and one thing I remember being surprised by is just how much additional washing they cause!

With this in mind, I set myself the task of getting our laundry basket down to EMPTY before I go into hospital - I did this by making sure that everything was put into the basket in colour co-ordinated order, and that each load I put into our Beko washing machine was a FULL capacity load to make sure I was getting the most efficient use out of the machines time.

5. Make Extra portions of Freezable Meals

In the week before going into hospital, I made extra portions of everything we ate for dinner and froze them...this will give us a week of ready-made meals for when I come home from the hospital so will eliminate any cooking related stress.

So that's how I'll be surviving this bringing home a newborn business! Do you have any tips to share?!